CoWare N2C Version 2.1 Enhances Simulation Performance and Accuracy

Santa Clara, CALIF - February 28, 2000 - CoWare[tm], Inc., the leading provider of system-level design tools for complex systems-on-a-chip (SoC) development, is now shipping CoWare N2C release 2.1. This newest release of CoWare's powerful hardware/software co-design tool includes numerous enhancements to simulation performance.

"Many of our customers hit a brick wall with HDL simulations, their chips were just too complex," stated Bob Moore, CoWare's Vice President of Marketing. "On top of that, more of the system was being implemented in software. By moving up to CoWare N2C's system-level co-design capabilities, they have experienced orders of magnitude increases in design productivity and the ability to catch design mistakes much earlier in the design flow. Now with release 2.1, they're seeing yet another order of magnitude increase in overall simulation speed at multiple abstraction levels."

By optimizing the performance of the CoWare N2C simulation engine, performance has been increased for all CoWare N2C simulation configurations, including HDL and ISS co-simulation. On a range of typical designs, CoWare N2C release 2.1 will improve performance from 3X to 5X over release 2.0 because simulation performance is highly design-dependent.

Other enhancements in CoWare N2C release 2.1 include better support for user-defined buses with multipoint channels, special clock and reset generator objects that help efficiently describe clocks with a small frequency delta, and enhancements to the tool's Interface Synthesis capabilities. Interface Synthesis automatically generates the software drivers and hardware glue logic to integrate intellectual property (IP) into complex system-on-chip (SoC) designs.

CoWare, Inc., founded in 1996, provides tools and methodologies that help engineering teams cut their system-on-a-chip design times in half. CoWare N2C[tm] provides an efficient means to capture, analyze, and implement a system specification, with parallel development by hardware and software teams. In addition, CoWare N2C greatly enhances IP re-use and selection, further reducing design time. The CoWare N2C software is employed by major systems and semiconductor companies including Alcatel, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Sony and ST Microelectronics. For more information, visit www.CoWare.com.